Grand Theft Auto VI is official, launches in 2025
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A scene from the Grand Theft Auto VI trailer. Image: Rockstar Games
Rockstar Games has revealed the next Grand Theft Auto earlier than planned, with a 90-second trailer that's promising a 2025 release for GTA VI and, in a rare turn for the series, a woman in one of the lead roles.
Why it matters: GTA is not just one of gaming's biggest franchises, but one of entertainment's biggest.
- The most recent entry, 2013's GTA V, has sold 190 million copies and earned $1 billion three days after its release, according to publisher Take Two Interactive.
- The GTA games are popular interactive playgrounds, a mix of story-driven crime adventure and playable sandbox, where players grab any car, boat or plane available and go for a joyride.
- The GTA VI trailer — released Monday night and set to Tom Petty's "Love Is A Long Road" — had been viewed nearly 60 million times on YouTube by Tuesday morning.
Details: The trailer confirms that GTA VI will be set in Vice City, Rockstar's satirical take on Miami.
- It focuses on a character named Lucia, who talks to a man, possibly her boyfriend or husband, about sticking together, while footage plays of the two robbing a liquor store and speeding away from the cops.
- It also includes scenes from around Vice City, including a man catching an alligator in his swimming pool, people running on a beach and speedboats racing through a harbor.
- After the trailer's release, Rockstar said the game will debut on the Xbox Series and PlayStation 5 consoles and that it will be set, broadly, in the Florida-like state of Leonida, which includes Vice City.
Be smart: The series is famously focused on the lives and crimes of men, featuring male leads in every major entry since 2001's seminal Grand Theft Auto III.
Of note: Rockstar had planned to debut the trailer at 9am ET on Dec. 5, a date it even secretly put it in an in-game t-shirt that was added to Grand Theft Auto Online in October.
- That announcement alone garnered more than 160 million views on X.
- After the trailer leaked Monday evening, Rockstar published the trailer on its official channel.
- "Our trailer has leaked," the company posted, "so please watch the real thing on YouTube." Within a half hour, that post had 14 million views.
Flashback: The game's leading couple and setting were initially leaked over a year ago after a hacker got access to in-development footage of the game.
- Rockstar confirmed that leak at the time but said it would not impact development of the game.
- Footage in today's trailer looked far more slick than the leaked footage.
What's next: Rockstar listed this as the game's first trailer, but has not said when they'll show more.
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Editor's note: This article has been updated with new details, including comment from Rockstar on which consoles the game will debut on.
